What’s Love Got to Do with It? Marriage and Sex in History.

Our Elders Put Out Early, Not at All, and Outside of Wedlock.

I recently discovered an online horror called The Transformed Wife. Although I had hoped it was a dark religious satire account, it’s as serious as a heart attack and twice as dangerous. TTW believes it is her God-given duty to “teach younger women to be sober, love and obey their husbands, love their children, be chaste, discreet, good, and keepers at home.” Marriage and copious pregnancies are her fetish; divorce, contraception, abortion, higher education, gender equality, and female empowerment are anathema to her.

She sounds like fun, huh?

As a human female who has been married twice and is about to dive back into the insanity for a third time, I have a few opinions on the subject of gaining the approval and oversight of the government in order to legitimize a relationship commitment that would be better handled as a civil contract. My opinions, as you might imagine, do not line up with those of The Transformed Wife.

TTW and her fans are devoted followers of the practice of patriarchy. Not in some vague, “yeah, yeah, men should pay for dates,” kinda way. Their earth grows closer to their heaven when men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it, except where men agree that women are allowed to do something. This, they firmly believe, is the only God-approved social structure, and anything that interferes with it, including personal preference, is an abomination before their Lord.

Given the contempt that Paul had for sex and marriage, none of this is surprising. Like some later Biblical scholars, he saw marriage as a sad alternative to celibacy. While he believed that abstaining from all forms of sexuality was superior to being sexual within a marriage, he acknowledged that humans are carnal creatures and thus marital sex was less bad than sex outside of marriage. “It is better to marry than to burn,” he wrote.

The Jewish Torah also emphasizes that sex within marriage is God’s preference, but commands that men provide pleasurable sexual intercourse to their wives on a regular basis even if they already have or cannot bear children, if she wants to have sex. Ironically, some Jewish holy books prohibit hugs, kisses, winks, or anything else that might lead to fornication before marriage, during menstruation, or with a relative. As is traditional, scholars have debated how to implement these restrictions in a world that even then encouraged handshakes and other polite forms of greeting between the sexes.

Of course, there’s always harlotry. Prior to the Torah, men could meet a woman in the market and, if they both agreed, money could be exchanged, sex enjoyed, and then the two could go their separate ways. Once the Torah was in place, all of this stopped. Sex with “harlots” was forbidden. Of course, because Jewish thinkers love to ponder and debate, even that has its detractors. Sex with women who habitually monetize the act, for instance, is far worse than a woman who pairs up erotically with one man, even as a concubine, who could be seen as a lower-level spouse.

Unlike Jewish kings, the average citizen was limited to a wife and no concubine. Except when he wasn’t. As you can expect from all things ancient, this topic is complex. Sex between divorced or religiously blended couples is equally confusing, and don’t get me started about civil marriages.

This is even more fascinating when you realize that some of the big-name players in the Old Testament were polygamous. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Esau, Moses, David, and Solomon all counted both wives and concubines among their bedmates. Naturally, the more women, the more trouble, so poor King Solomon’s moral path was diverted by the influence of his 700 wives and 300 concubines. That may be why he sounds less than excited about the institution in his writings on the topic.

With all these men running around with multiple women and the Lord’s approval, what is the modern obsession with monogamy? If you ignore the possible existence of Lilith as a first and non-subservient spouse for Adam and just focus on her replacement, Eve, it becomes apparent that the God of Eden expects marriage to be a natural state for humans and that their monogamous sexuality should be expressed within it.

As for romantic love as we know it today, there’s next to none of it in the Bible. The closest we get is between David and Jonathan and between Ruth and Naomi. Given the rampant homophobia in the modern church, those must be difficult stories to explain to the kids. Likewise, arranged marriages, the essential possession of bridal virginity, and the recommended stoning in front of their fathers’ homes of those women who were believed to have fallen short of the aspiration. For those who survived to marry, husband-initiated divorce was easy until Jesus arrived on the scene to condemn the practice.

Things weren’t too different for the ancient Romans, who were also big fans of patriarchy. Dad was the head of the family, and he had total control over its members including wife, kids, and slaves. While poets sometimes praised romantic love, it didn’t have much to do with the average marriage. It’s true that there were marriages based on mutual love and respect, but for the most part, if you wanted a romantic tryst, you did it outside of your marriage. The purpose of a married couple was to produce children. Everything else was gravy.

Letters, poems, inscriptions, and epitaphs exist from this time that assures us some married couples felt romantic love for one another, but most of the evidence available shows a pattern of men having extramarital affairs with women, other men, or boys who were not freeborn Roman citizens. Until the time of Augustus, divorce was an option for both husband and wife, but it had to be based on specific grounds such as infertility, abuse, or neglect. Remarriage was expected. Once Augustus was on the scene, he passed laws making it legal to kill marital partners and their adulterous lovers. Likewise, because marriage began to drop out of favor, he granted special privileges to couples with at least three children.

It's possible that The Transformed Wife would feel liberated by these restrictions. Women were praised for their sexual fidelity, sense of decency, love of husband, marital concord, devotion to family, fertility, physical beauty, cheerfulness, and happiness. Naturally, in both Roman and Greek societies, men did not have to adhere to these standards since they were based on the examples presented by six divine couples. Male gods, after all, were free to tangle with anyone they wanted (ask Lida, Persephone, Alkmene, Demeter, Medusa, Danae, Antiope, Kallisto, Ariadne, Arachne, Psyche, Semele, Creusa, Europa, and others), while their female counterparts were expected to have more decorum.

Fertility and sexuality were celebrated during festivals such as Lupercalia which featured open fornication and a place of honor for prostitutes. As important as the latter profession was to the ancients, it did not carry much social clout. Considered lower-class than respectable people, prostitutes shared a level of acceptance also known by dancers, actors, singers, and gladiators.

For Romans to marry, each partner needed to be a consenting citizen. Of course, consent is loosely defined here since a father could arrange a marriage for his children of either sex, and they were expected to go through with it regardless of their personal opinions. There were three kinds of Roman marriages: arranged, purchased, and long-term shacking up. The minimum age of marriage for girls was 12. For boys, who were considered to mature later, the age was 15, although most men waited until they were 26.

In an attempt to differentiate early Christian marriages from those of the pagans and avoid the “pollution” of intercourse, regulations forbid sex during Advent, Lent, Whitsuntide, Sundays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, other holy days, during menstruation, pregnancy, and lactation. Once finally wed, the couple had to wait three nights before consummating their union, and any married couple that had sex was supposed to eschew communion the next day. Sex was also a no-no in churches, cemeteries, and other holy places. You know, anywhere you could actually get some privacy.

By the time we arrive in the Middle Ages, sex is associated with an inability to be rational or reasonable. Eventually, it became enemy number one for the Church. Even then, early Church fathers (notice it’s always men) debated how much of a sin sex within and outside of marriage was, with St. Augustine considering even lustful marital encounters were only a small sin. Infidelity was always a major sin, however. St. Jerome’s take on marriage and sex was much less forgiving.

These, of course, are only some of the wacky marital traditions that humans claim to have inherited from their deities. Others include marrying a living child to a dead one and marrying cousins or half-siblings. In the Middle East, most marriages throughout history are believed to have been between first and second cousins. In some cultures, a woman could marry multiple men, while others have included group marriages.

Between the sixth and ninth centuries, the Roman Catholic Church prevailed, and monogamy became the Western world’s fallback position. Likewise, from 1215 until the 1980s, the Church decreed that partners had to post public notices of intent to marry. This stands in stark comparison to the Church’s willingness until the 1500s to take people on their word that they had exchanged marriage vows. In 1639 Massachusetts began requiring marriage licenses. By the 19^th century, such licenses were common.

As The Transformed Wife’s developing religion continued to grow, procreation continued to be the obsession of its clergy. Any kind of contraceptive behavior including unusual sex positions was not allowed. On the plus side, by the mid-twelfth century, the number of no-sex days on the calendar was reduced and sexual abstinence between married partners was discouraged. That doesn’t mean that the Church didn’t spend a ridiculous amount of time regulating sex and making sure activities it didn’t approve of became crimes punishable by public penance, including whipping around the church over three successive Sundays.

Totally down with blacklisting as much sexual intimacy as possible during the thirteenth century, a list of unnatural sex acts was created and included such aberrations as non-missionary positions, masturbation, homosexuality, and bestiality. Ironically, one medieval custom that never caught on or stuck around is that of spiritual marriage.

While this ever-virgin option may have kept the individuals free of carnal sin because they never engaged in any sexual activity, thus honoring the Virgin Mary and her early husband, Joseph, the Church wasn’t as supportive as you might think. Without intercourse, how could patriarchy be upheld? How could the gender hierarchy be upheld? How could men be expected not to become homosexuals? Still occasionally practiced even in the 21^st century, it has become known as Josephite marriage.

The idea that a husband and wife should love one another and base their marriage upon that love is one that became popular about 250 years ago. Sexual attraction during Victorian England was not considered important, especially since women were not believed to experience sexual urges. In territories colonized by the British, married women essentially became non-persons.

The Anglo-Norman tradition of coverture meant that their legal identity was automatically terminated upon marriage. Married women didn’t even have rights regarding their own children. Until the 1970s, American wives could be legally raped by their husbands and until 1991, women in the UK dealt with the same outrage.

Fortunately, the spread of democracy and the increase in women’s involvement in the economy has brought about greater personal independence, including the right to enjoy sexual activities with others or just by ourselves. No wonder The Transformed Wife is so upset. Modern marriage, although far from perfect, is more about equality than the institution has ever been.

This means that women can work outside of the home, have their own bank accounts and credit cards, make (most of) their own medical decisions, become friends with members of the opposite sex, file for divorce, and basically not be trapped in an abusive, ill-fitting, or otherwise unhappy marriage.

There is nothing more threatening to an insecure control freak such as TTW, than the idea that a woman doesn’t need a man in order to survive. Indeed, the woman who thinks it’s wicked to ask husbands to help with housework insists that “If you are a God-fearing woman, you must understand that you can’t have it all. This is a satanic lie. You can’t be a great wife, mother, and career woman. This is literally impossible.”

And for the boys? She has a message for you, too. “Porn’s goal is to emasculate and destroy men.” In fact, according to those she admires, “It literally makes you gay.” Gentlemen, you have been warned.